School Toilet matters.

 For Shawn kindly looking forward to my report.

 It's not as frequent as the average that my brain feels a need.  Clean and sanitary toilets judged as enough to entrust with my privacy by my severe sense of cleanliness, however, trigger nature calls in my brain.  How come do I never feel the need almost all day long on a trip or in visiting schools (as a student teacher) or playing outdoor sports like climbing, camping, etc before getting back home at night after leaving in the morning? I assert that I owe it to my experiences in junior and senior high school (hereafter, JHS and SHS).

 It is not only toilets but buildings that are more than OLD in my SHS.  How old, you ask?  The lights are HUNG from the ceiling in a classroom and the lock of a window requires turning MANY times and pulling out. oh jeez, I cannot believe it still is in the 21st century. haha  ( As tipping you a piece of info on Japanese educational system, our compulsory education is 6-year-elementary school and 3-year-JHS education. We choose high school at our own request and score and I myself chose the high school, the *oldest* school in my city. )  I remember a private girls SHS and a public industrial SHS both locating next to ours were bragging of their AC exhausting noises.
 As for school toilets, anyways, it was not only the stools being squatting type inside a creaky door with a dim light but also, worse than anything else, the entrance being along a corridor and the hinged door covering only from bust up to head.  Walking down the corridor, you see someone is in or not for the room is one step above and the stall one more step above and there is unbelievably existing space under the stall's door.  It's nothing other than stressful to us, Japanese girls.  Restrooms anywhere are usually set back far enough from a corridor with little possibility to have enough space to show even feet inside, which could help the soundproofing too, like shown in the picture - It's my university's school toilets inside the entrance door.  My SHS's toilets did not guarantee the necessary privacy or personal space, which we Japanese keep from being intimidated from others, in my humble analysis.  American public toilets are the same in the sense?
 The only one building out of three had a door in the entrance to toilets.  It had only two or three stalls on a floor where there are 5 classrooms with more than 100 girls.  This environment makes us stand nature calls.
 My JHS was only with 15 years history then and had the very normal school toilet - a dim light, bunch of gals gathering and talking back from teachers and boys, squatting type stools, and a broken and closed sitting type stool.  We had little time to go to toilet - a break between classes is only for 10 min and it is required to stay on a sheet with eyes closed to be calm in the last 2 min, and additionally, the accessibility to each is limited by grade and it is not always close from the classroom.  Even in long lunch break, it is crowded with girls talking and exchanging purikura photo-sticker or letters that are banned and I never felt like using being seen going in or heard the business.  It was handleable usually.  In menstrual period, however, cannot help using toilet, taking a little long time to stay in, making the sound, feeling unwell with cramps - I mean, DISTRESSING.  It wasn't handleable and, in and for a while after my menarche, I didn't think I could deal with it in squatting type toilet which I don't have at home and I had to take AWOLs.  Taking off indoor shoes and putting on slippers at the entrance tells people that you are using toilet, toilets in a gym is ruled by little gangsters, the number of toilets isn't enough, telling a teacher that you need to go in class brings classmates' banters and awkwardness of interrupting class, and washed toilet floor brings about your nausea.  School toilets also remind us of toilet-related ghosts in movies or folk takes.  Old toilets or average school toilets are 5K (kowai - frightening or scary, kusai - stinky,  kitanai - dirty, kurai - dark or gloomy, kowareteiru - broken).  Furthermore, the fact that lazybones put toilet paper on a floor after opening and using it instead of replacing in a holder and a clean-up monitor or a kind user puts in a holder frightens my sense of cleanliness and I always worry that the toilet paper in the holder in front of me might have been on a floor with lots of bacteria or germs where there is no shelf for it.
 All the environmental, mental, human, and physical factors kept me from toilets unconsciously.

 What about kids in general?  Architect Junko Kobayashi has reported on school toilets and children in architectural view;
 To a question - What would you do when you feel the need to pee? - in an elementary school in 2001, about 30% of children answered that they would stand as possible.  Boys in 3rd grade, girls in 2, 3, and 6th grade hit 40% in it.  To another question - what would you do when you feel the need to poop? - can you imagine?  Half. Half of children would stand.  Many girls in 4, 5, and 6 grade and boys in all the grade answered they would stand no matter what.  As for boys in the 2nd grade, 17.9% answered they would stand as possible and 64.1% answered they would stand no matter what, in particular.  Incidentally,  some children come to school dispensary for stomachache after standing the nature calls.  Embarrassing, dirty, stinky, uneasy, banterer, and little time were the key factors.  In addition, teachers say that children cannot use squatting type toilet and they cannot go to school toilet lately.

 Is is bad to stand nature calls?
As aforementioned, my brain does not receive the calls without secure access to preferable toilets and my friends often envy me.  I myself used to feel so lucky too.  It is, in fact, risky, however.

  Defecation, peristaltic movement - smooth muscle propeling contents through the digestive tract - are led by cerebral order but, with habitual endurance, the order does not reach then.  Through this process, you do not feel the need normally and get constipated easily.  Constipation usually means few number of bowel movement, little amount of excrement, hard feces, or difficulties from feeling of residual poop or abdominal distention.  Lifestyle, shyness, or resistance can be a factor.  Fortunately, I am in the habit of going to toilet every morning, unconsciously,  I have been unrelated to it, thank God.

 Now that I shall show you surprising number reported in 2010 子ども白書 The State of Children of Japan.
 420 elementary school students in 1, 2, and 3rd grade in the Tokyo metropolitan area participated in a research by Japan Toilet Lab and Oji Nepia and it appeared that 32.9% of children poop every day, 17% poop once in more than 3 consecutive days, and 14 children defecated once in more than 7 consecutive days!
 Accumulating poops in the bowels causes decomposition and toxic substances.  When they are taken in the body through the intestinal wall, you feel unwell and your immunity gets its disorder, Mr. Kato, the reporter says.

 For my Master's thesis, I am trying to find the exact number of these and situation reports from children, teachers, school nurses, and parents (at least) all over my prefecture.

 What is the key against the problem that Japanese children cannot go to toilet as they want and causes some disorder in their body?
 Lately, the trend is replacing all the squatting type toilets to sitting type.  Nothing gives me such great pleasure as toilets to be new and clean but it reminds me of a word - homeopathy.

 Any vice or dirt are being taken away from society and artificial man-made environment is being made.  Products are with an antibacterial finish and an odor killer.  It is getting exceeding, many researchers say.

 I, of course, prefer clean toilets. I prefer sitting type to use.  On the other hand, I have some doubts.  Are those who grown up in the environment able to use the outhouse like in the earthquake affected area?  Will they be okay with the bacteria that we have been okay with by now?  What about the muscles and joints that are supposed to be improved in using squatting type toilet?

 2.6 billion people don't have access to adequate toilet and sanitation and we 100% of Japanese have.  However, we still have problems with it.  In the exact opposite sense - exceeding sense of cleanliness.